Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

rs-eos — Sun, 07 Jan 2024 20:19:05 GMT

When I got my first DSLR (Rebel T4i), I conducted a few technical shoots to see what noise levels were at various ISO settings. I repeated this with the EOS 6D, but realized I never did so with the EOS 5D IV.

Additionally, since I just moved to new lighting equipment, I wanted to ensure that the camera's displayed histogram matched my gray card and to also determine what Kelvin value best matched my new light.

Regarding gray cards, I have a Datacolor Spyder color checker with colored swatches along with a 50% (18% reflected) gray card. I recently read (perhaps those articles were dated though) that a camera's meter would be closer calibrated to 12% reflected gray. As I'll show belowk for the EOS 5D IV, a 50% gray card shows a spike right in the middle of the histogram. Excellent.

Note: for all images, I had my camera on a tripod.

First up is noise (these are all 100% crops of a color chart). I used a 135mm f/2 lens always at f/16 and 1/200 shutter. I then varied power on my Profoto B10X Plus (from 1.7 when at ISO 32000, all the way to 10.0 when at ISO 100). As the strobe can only be adjusted in 1/10 stop increments, I chose to use a "0.3" value for 1/3 stop and "0.7" value for 2/3 stop. In Lightroom, I adjusted exposure a bit (around 0.05 stops) as needed. Though near the top power levels and lowest ISO values, I did find I needed to adjust around 0.3 stops. I may not have let the light fully recycle perhaps.

EOS 5D IV ISO Noise

Next, I shot my gray card in 100ºK increments from 5000ºK through 7000ºK. For the B10X Plus and 5D IV camera combo, I found that 6000ºK produced the most neutral gray.

Finally, I did the histogram test with the gray card, adjusting my light in 1/10 stop through a range for the distance I had the light at. Then, in Lightroom, I checked which image produced exactly 50% luminance. Which ended up matching my camera's histogram when the spike from the gray card was right in its middle.

Here are various images from the Kelvin and exposure test. Note: For the images where I was at the correct color temperature, using the eyedropper tool in Lightroom to adjust white balance basically did nothing (as expected). Color temp mostly stayed the same, or at most was adjusted by 50º Kelvin. Tint either stayed exactly the same, or increased by 1 unit.

Gray Card Underexposed Gray Card Overexposed

Gray Card Too Cool (5000ºK) Gray Card Too Warm (7000ºK)

Gray Card Just Right (6000ºK) Color Chart Just Right (6000ºK)

Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

Peter — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 17:06:19 GMT

I see no colour noise. NR turned on?

Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

rs-eos — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 17:11:54 GMT

Noise reduction was not applied. The only things I did in Lightroom was to apply lens corrections and then slight exposure adjustments to equalize things (anywhere from +0.05 EV to +0.3 EV)

Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

Peter — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 17:25:17 GMT

Is it auto-applied then in LR because I can't see any traces of colour noise?

Edit: I will just try myself before I am saying too much.

Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

rs-eos — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 17:31:39 GMT

My mistake, I just opened up the Manual Noise Reduction panel and its defaults do indeed apply color NR (value of 25). Detail and Smootness also at their defaults of 50. Reducing color to 0 then re-introduces the color noise.

For Luminance NR, that's definitely at 0.

This is with Lightroom Classic version 13.1 (Camera Raw 16.1).

topic Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color

Re: Camera and Lighting Experiements - Noise, Exposure, Color